Associates Are Leaving World's Wealthiest Biglaw Firm In Droves
The work is reportedly nonstop, and associates can't take it anymore.
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People are leaving because the demands are increasingly brutal. There’s an unbelievable amount of work, especially on the deal side. The few deal lawyers I interact with, they’ve never seen so much flow.
I know someone who got an offer at another firm, told the partner they were working with, and got offered some crazy retention bonus. They stayed on.
I haven’t seen Kirkland change anything. Big Law careers are generally short anyway. It’s that mindset of, ‘It’s OK if you leave because we can just hire more people.’
— a current associate at Kirkland & Ellis, offering their thoughts on the firm’s oftentimes grueling work expectations, which have driven a high amount of associate turnover. According to Firm Prospects, the firm lost 323 associates between September 2020 and September 2021, but gained 613 associates at the same time.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
